Day 62. Evening. Wildwood, BC

We were sorely tempted to hang a left off highway 97, aka the Cariboo Collector, take the side road to Horsefly, BC, and visit the Horseflyers, but we resisted and ended up here, a few miles north of Williams Lake. Wouldn't it be great to live in a town called Horsefly?

Canadians like to name their roads: Stewart Cassiar, Yellowhead, Cariboo Collector; we drove on all 3 today. I kinda like the naming thing; they all have numbers also. Gotta look up Yellowhead, was told it refers to some famous Kanuck that had blonde hair.

In our first hour of driving today we saw a black bear, a moose and a WL. For those who just tuned in or have short memories, WL stands for World’s Largest, and we’ve seen many fine WLs along the way. Today’s WL was a fly rod located in the town of Houston, BC. It weighs 800 pounds so usage is limited to a small number of really buff fishermen.

Most of today’s drive was through smoke. There are 350 wildfires burning in BC Province, not sure how many or how large are the ones near us. One of the locals said we’ll continue driving in smoke tomorrow for another 150 miles beyond Williams Lake. The sun has an orange tint due to the smoke, looks weird.

The trip odometer went back to zero today, which means we’ve gone over 10000 miles. I’ll provide the official mile count when we arrive at our first stateside campground and the end of the 3rd leg of our odyssey. No doubt y’all are on the edge of your seats waiting for that bit of totally useless trivia.

They charge extra ($3 a day) for wifi here at the Wildwood RV Park. I’m a cheapskate so didn’t pony up, don’t like being nickel-dimed to death. This is the only campground we’ve stayed in that charged extra. So, this post won’t hit the streets until tomorrow.

Day 62. Morning. Smithers, BC

It wasn’t ugly after all, played well for a change and got several pars on the 18-hole par-3 course. The course and the campground are run by the same people; there’s also a restaurant and through July they offered free golf to anyone who ate there. We did eat there so our golf was free, a very good price.

There was a caravan of about 25 rigs due in here last night but they didn’t arrive. I suspect they were coming from the north and got stopped by the large fire that’s burning near the northern section of the Stewart Cassiar Highway. The SCH was closed for awhile and maybe still is. We drove through the area the same day the fire started, saw the smoke and a helicopter carrying water to the fire. We heard a rumor that the Alaska Highway was also closed. It was lucky timing for us to have missed all that.

In an earlier post, I mentioned being curious about the name Stewart. Here’s the poop. James Stewart (not the actor) worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company in the mid 1800’s. He and his boss, Robert Campbell, explored northern BC and Campbell was responsible for naming the Stewart River after Jimmy – and then the name spread to the town and the highway.

In another earlier post, I speculated that the loon may be Canada’s national bird. It is not. In fact, they have no national bird but seem to be in the process of selecting one. Citizens are currently offering suggestions on what the national bird should be, and the loon ranks number 3, behind the red tailed hawk and the Canada goose.

It’s 6:45 AM. We’ll be hitting the road in about an hour, destination Williams Lake.